Sunday, September 19, 2010

Day 3 of the Snap challenge

I should note that I started this early because I am going out of town this weekend and wouldn't have time to complete the week eating at home, which is the idea. For everyone else, the challenge begins today and I wish them all luck.

Today, I went to the grocery store. I shop at Sam's a good deal but that is not allowed on the challenge, so I just went to Schnucks and did my regular shopping. Sometimes I go to Aldi's but I find there aren't enough healthy options there. Too many prepackaged and unhealthy options and not enough good choices. For the right price and healthy options, Trader Joe's is always a good bet, unfortunately, there are too many things they don't carry, I love them but they are way too small. I made sure and took note of the prices on everything I had at home so I could properly budget my week. I found apple juice on sale for only .97- the no sugar added kind, the good kind.

Since I didn't eat yesterday, I wanted to try to eat really well today but I decided to skip lunch so I could have a healthy dinner. I know I didn't eat yesterday but I still wanted to stay within the rules of the challenge.

This morning I had two scrambled eggs and used spray canola oil. This breakfast cost me around 22 cents- hey, great start! The canola oil cost around $1.50 a can and I probably get around a hundred sprays out of it, that's pretty cost effective, about 2 cents a spray. I wanted to have chicken breast for dinner and I like olive oil. It is kind of expensive to cook with, even though it is one of the most healthy oils, so I tried to see if I could afford it. I'll spare you the math, the portion I used was going to cost me .66. The cheapest option out there is generic vegetable oil, but that is also the most unhealthy. The next best would be canola oil, a passable substitute. By skipping lunch, I could afford the olive oil and I decided to go with it, a kind of sacrifice but one nonetheless.

Bone in chicken is definitely cheaper than boneless and healthwise, it's no better or worse. I used a tablespoon of flour and a quarter teaspoon seasoning for the chicken, fresh green beans, one baked potato and an ounce of fresh spinach.

After all of this, including a pat of butter and a half a tablespoon of sour cream, I have spent:

$4.22 for the whole day.

Really, I could not have afforded to have lunch at all, I have only .28!I'm going to have a cup of tea in a little bit so that will really be gone then.

I made healthy choices but at what cost. I think now one can begin to see how some of these healthy choices aren't really options if you are budgeting so little. These are the best choices you can make at the time, I see all the choices I probably should have made to stay within budget and still have three meals.

What I really refuse to give up is organic milk, the health cost is simply too high and I will have to make compromises in other areas of my food budget. I made a conscious decision that I no longer drink milk with Rbgh hormone in it and neither do my children and I have not done so in five years. I simply did not have any milk today and I guess I'll have to take some vitamin D. This is a challenge that reveals something new every day.